Donovan Creed Books in Order
Part ofJohn Locke Books in OrderSee the Donovan Creed books in order by John Locke, with quick summaries, series background, and simple advice on where to start reading.
Last updated: June 7, 2026
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Publication Order
16 books
Lethal Experiment
by John Locke
2009
Creed wants a quieter life with the people he cares about, but a deadly new test of money, justice, and murder pulls him straight back in. The second book keeps the action high and the moral lines very loose.
Lethal People
by John Locke
2009
Former CIA assassin Donovan Creed takes on mob boss Joe DeMeo after a chance encounter with a horribly burned little girl changes the stakes. It is the opening Donovan Creed thriller, violent, funny, and moving at full speed.
Saving Rachel
by John Locke
2009
What should be the best morning of Donovan Creed's life turns into a nightmare. Forced into a frantic race to save Rachel, he has to outthink ruthless enemies and act fast before the damage becomes permanent.
Now & Then
by John Locke
2010
After the fallout of the previous book, Donovan Creed gets almost no time to recover before fresh trouble finds him. Past choices keep colliding with present danger in a thriller that expands his world without slowing down.
Wish List
by John Locke
2010
A wish granting setup with too much money and too little conscience drags Donovan Creed into one of the series' strangest plots. What starts as a wild idea turns into a dangerous game of greed, manipulation, and murder.
A Girl Like You
by John Locke
2011
Donovan Creed lands in another slick, violent puzzle centered on a woman who is not what she first seems. The result is a quick, twisty thriller that balances Creed's dark humor with sudden bursts of danger.
Maybe
by John Locke
2011
When an angry chemist unleashes a biological threat, Donovan Creed is pulled into a crisis that could spread far beyond one target. The stakes jump, but the series keeps its dark humor and fast pulse.
The Love You Crave
by John Locke
2011
Creed keeps reaching for something like a normal life, but his talent for violence keeps wrecking the plan. This entry mixes romance, menace, and the offbeat team dynamics that give the series its strange charm.
Vegas Moon
by John Locke
2011
To save his own life, Donovan Creed has to make a deal he does not trust and head into a dangerous Las Vegas tangle. It is fast, funny, and packed with the double crosses Creed seems born to attract.
Callie's Last Dance
by John Locke
2012
With the power around Sensory Resources shifting, Donovan Creed and Callie Carpenter are thrown into another tangle of schemes and violence. Las Vegas players, personal feelings, and a shaky chain of command keep raising the stakes.
Because We Can!
by John Locke
2013
Donovan Creed and Callie Carpenter keep moving deeper into dangerous territory as loyalty, desire, and violence start to blur together. Their chemistry gives this twisty thriller its spark, and makes every decision riskier.
This Means War!
by John Locke
2014
Donovan Creed comes out of a brutal stretch with old grudges still burning. It is a hard charging series entry where bruised loyalties, fresh enemies, and Callie Carpenter's presence push Creed back into full fight mode.
Boxed In!
by John Locke
2016
Dr. Gideon Box and Donovan Creed crash into each other's worlds in a nasty, fast moving crossover. Medical brilliance, assassin logic, and oversized egos make every alliance unstable and every mistake expensive.
The President's Daughter
by John Locke
2017
A kidnapping case drops Donovan Creed into a high stakes mess where every player seems to have a second plan. When the victim is the president's daughter, even Creed knows one bad move could blow up everything.
The Day Miriam Lost Her Sh*t!
by John Locke
2019
One bad moment sends Miriam into a chain reaction of worse decisions and stranger consequences. Funny on the surface and nasty underneath, it plays like a Donovan Creed world thriller seen from a different angle.
A Woman Scorned
by John Locke
2020
With a billion dollar bounty on their lives, Donovan Creed and Callie Carpenter learn again that nobody can be trusted. Nearly broke, they take humiliating jobs while a stalker pushes the danger closer to home.
Series background & context
Donovan Creed is the engine of John Locke's best known series, and engine is the right word. Creed is a former CIA assassin who now works in a murky world of private hits, crooked employers, mob figures, government shadows, and people with enough money to turn a bad idea into a national problem. He is smart, fast, funny, and never quite as in control as he thinks.
The books start with Lethal People, where Creed gets pulled into a violent collision involving mob power, a burned child, and the people he cannot quite stop caring about. From there, Lethal Experiment, Saving Rachel, and Now & Then build a wider world around him. Jobs get stranger. The consequences get nastier. Creed still talks like the coolest man in the room, but the series keeps testing that confidence.
He is not a lone wolf for long.
One of the pleasures of these books is the cast around him. Callie Carpenter becomes a major force, and their partnership gives the series much of its spark. Add in recurring allies, enemies, oddballs, and people who should probably never be left unsupervised, and the books start to feel less like single missions and more like life inside a badly supervised criminal ecosystem. Locke also likes crossovers, so readers will notice threads brushing up against the Dani Ripper, Gideon Box, and Emmett Love books.
Tone matters here. These are thrillers, but they are not grim in the usual way. The violence can be brutal, yet the voice stays loose, sarcastic, and playful. A book like Wish List can build a story around an absurd premise and still make the danger land. Maybe raises the stakes with a biological threat. The President's Daughter and later books like A Woman Scorned keep widening the trouble without losing the crooked grin that makes the series work.
Underneath all the wisecracks, there is a simple ongoing tension. Creed keeps reaching for some version of an ordinary life, or at least a less catastrophic one. The series keeps reminding him that his skills, his loyalties, and his past make that hard. The more he cares about people, the more exposed he becomes.
That push and pull is what keeps the books moving.
If you want sleek realism, this is probably not your stop. If you want fast crime fiction with a smart mouthed lead, big twists, strange schemes, recurring characters, and a willingness to get weird very quickly, Donovan Creed is the place to start. Read the books in order if you can, because the character relationships and running jokes build on one another.
Edited by
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